Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (Studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus)

Eastern Turkestan, now known as Xinjiang or the New Territory, makes up a sixth of China's land mass. Absorbed by the Qing in the 1880s and reconquered by Mao in 1949, this Turkic-Muslim region of China's remote northwest borders on formerly Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Mongolia, and Tibet, Will Xinjiang participate in twenty-first century ascendancy, or will nascent Islamic radicalism in Xinjiang expand the orbit of instability in a dangerous part of the world? This comprehensive survey of contemporary Xinjiang is the result of a major collaborative research project begun in 1998. The authors have combined their fieldwork experience, linguistic skills, and disciplinary expertise to assemble the first multifaceted introduction to Xinjiang. The volume surveys the region's geography; its history of military and political subjugation to China; economic, social, and commercial conditions; demography, public health, and ecology; and patterns of adaption, resistance, opposition, and evolving identities. Introduction / S. Frederick Starr Political and cultural history of the Xinjiang region through the late 19th century / James A. Milward and Peter C. Perdue Political history and strategies of control, 1884-1978 / James A. Milward and Nabijan Tursun The Chinese program of development and control, 1978-2001 / Dru C. Gladney The great wall of steel: military and strategy in Xinjiang / Yitzhak Shichor The economy of Xinjiang Call Wiemer Education and social mobility among minority populations in Xinjiang / Linda Benson A "land of borderlands": implications of Xinjiang's trans-border interactions / Sean R. Roberts The demography of Xinjiang / Stanley W. Toops The ecology of Xinjiang: a focus on water / Stanley W. Toops Public health and social pathologies in Xinjiang / Jay Dautcher Acculturation and resistance: Xinjiang identities in flux / Justin Rudelson and Jonathan N. Lipman Islam in Xinjiang / Graham E. Fuller and Jonathan N. Lipman Contested histories / Gardner Bovingdon, with contributions by Nabijan Tursun Respnses to Chinese rule: patterns of cooperation and opposition / Dr C. Gladney In the northwest corner of the country, Xinjiang is China's largest province, has the highest per-capita gross domestic product of any province outside the booming coast, hosts China's nuclear test facilities, contains the country's largest oil reserves, but perhaps most importantly is the one Chinese province with a substantial Turkic and Muslim population. Anthropologists, historians, political scientists, a US intelligence agent and a business consultant, who specialize in Asia and China generally but often in the western Chinese regions in particular discuss its history, Chinese policy toward it today, Xinjiang society, the costs of control and development by the central government, and the indigenous response. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR